Proud Vermaelen urges team to keep going

Thomas Vermaelen says he’s proud of the performance Arsenal put in against Man City, and even though it’s very much an outside chance, says they’ll keep going in the Premier League.

The Gunners responded to a difficult week with a big second half performance, and the captain was happy his team responded in the right way.

“I think we should be proud of the mentality we had today,” he said. “We went for the three points today but they’re a good side and you have to be aware of the counter-attack. Their goal was a bit unlucky, but as a team we played well. We need to see after if it’s one point gained or two points lost.”

Questioned about the team’s reported lack of character, Vermaelen said, “I don’t totally agree with that. In every game we’ve tried to work hard and the character and spirit has always been good.

“Of course the results in the big games haven’t been sometimes what we wanted but we showed today we can work hard and play for a result.”

And on the possibility of winning the title after Chelsea dropping points to Crystal Palace, “There’s still a few games left, the Premier League is so tough everyone can win against everybody. It’s not over yet, we still believe in it and there’s still games to play so let’s see.”

While our hopes of the title are really slim, let’s not forget that John Terry’s own goal cost Chelsea the match yesterday.

46 COMMENTS

Vermealen may be proud of the collective team performance, yet here is one player who I am not proud of – Gibbs.

On this website there are not many who see Gibbs as more of a liability than an asset.

When he remembers he has the ability to run past players, he can be good offensively. However his tendency to drift inside too much means he isn’t’ as effective as he could be.

His attitude, I.E – jogging back when the opposition counters is something he tends to do. His defensive positioning can be terrible at times as well. (I wont follow my runner, I’l assume Vermealen has him…. 1-0 down because Gibbs makes the wrong decision.

What annoys me the most though is the idea he has ingrained in his mind that if he gives a player 10 yards of space around him then the opposition clearly is not going to notice this and pass to him. In fairness he is often left isolated due to Podolski/Cazorla not getting back quick enough but still there are just too many defensive mistakes for my liking.

Sorry lads, but as much as I love the idea of bringing a player through the youths and into the first team, Gibbs just isnt good enough. He is decent, however we need a world class LB/Baines-esque LB which Gibbs is not, his position is a weakness in our side. Solid enough, but not consistent enough.

People seem to ignore the many mistakes Gibbs makes, I can’t see the reason for it. I think people are blinded by the fact he is a homegrown player. Every single game, I notice the same thing. Every single game, he makes the same mistake.

Though, to get back on topic, I appreciate Verms…. if only he would be more vocal!

It’s true dude, he’s been solid this season with the exception of the odd game. He’s still not perfect and has some development but he’s a hell of a lot better than he has been. Last season and the one before he was pretty poor but this year he’s been decent.

i don’t get it. Gibbs did well against Jesus navas and Zabaleta. Podolski did not help Gibbs in the early first half, maybe that caused a few problems in the wing. But after that they worked together and most of the good attacking chances came from the left wing i think.

Strange the number of thumbs down because the comments are not far from the mark. Gibbs has moments of really good play but over the season he is too inconsistent and he isn’t one of the best. Maybe over the coming seasons he will become what people seem to think he is already but lets wait and see.

If we look at Tackles, Take on’s and headed duels into one, Then Gibbs win/succeed in 46%, While Sagna Win/succeed in 61%.

Gibbs dont like to involve himself in aerial duels and prefer to wait until the ball is on the ground and then attempt a tackle. Gibbs have 94 attempts at tackling, against Sagna’s 64 attempts. However Sagna have been In a 144 aerial duels against Gibbs’s 85

Gibbs succeed in 46% of his tackles, while Sagna succeed in 53% of his. Gibbs win 49% of his aerial duels, While Sagna win 67% of his aerial duels. Gibbs succeed with 44% of his take on’s, while Sagna succeed in 50% of his. However Gibbs have attempted 41 take on’s while Sagna has only attempted 14. Sagna prefer to just bend his crosses around the defender instead of taking him on.

Such a shame if we can’t hold onto vermaelen at the end of the season. Great back up. Prone to making mistakes in the past but he showed against City just how good he can be – he was the better of the Belgian centre backs yesterday without a doubt. Only issue is the captaincy, still think it should be Per’s.

Verm is still shaking off the cobwebs .. its nice to have such an awesome player as a back up to our solid centre backs… would like it if we could work all 3 of em together on a rotation basis so fatigue isnt an issue.

Sorry for off-topic reply, but I just crunched the math on the rest of the season. Statistics major here.. and wanted share it. 86% chance of us getting Champions League if the last matches follow the same distribution as the first 32 rounds.

I’ve taken a slightly different approach, assigning a number of points to each team corresponding to the average a hypothetical title-contending team should get against a club of that standard, with differences for home and away. e.g. Against Man City I assign 1.5pts Home, 0.5pts Away; against Crystal Palace I assign 3pts Home, 3pts Away. I then input the actual points gained and use the ratio of actual/expected to assess where teams are after taking fixture difficulty into account, and then make predictions.

I currently have Arsenal on 0.96, and the hypothetical title-contending team gains 81pts over the season, so most likely prediction is 78pts. Everton are on 0.92 which means 74/75pts. Even with an Everton win this weekend I still make Arsenal favourites (very close!), shifting them up to 0.93 and us down to 0.95 but an Arsenal win would essentially end the contest – 0.89 (72pts) versus 0.99 (80pts).

Actually you’re right, I was being a knob and forgetting a few previous captains. He was/is a pretty decent captain but I find it ridiculous that he still has it while he’s not first choice.
Not quite as ludicrous as Arteta being vice captain to be fair but still…

It’d have to be Mertesacker as skipper and a toss up between Rosicky and Flamini for vice captain. I’d probably go for Little Mozart but that might just be because I’m becoming worryingly obsessed with him.

Gibbs used to have positional issues.However,that has mostly not been the case this season thus emphasising the value of regular playing time and freedom from injury to a talented player’s career.It is pertinent to observe that even the usually rock-solid Sagna has suffered from lack of defensive support a few times this season especially in the so-called “big games”.Rather than blame Sagna/Jenks,Gibbs/Nacho,the real issue is the deficiency in the defensive/deep-lying midfield positions.Rather than criticise the likes of Podolski,Cazorla,Ox or Gnabry for lacking the defensive nous or work rate of the likes of Willian,Oscar and Schurrle,we should hope that Wenger goes back to the concept of at least one ultra-athletic ball-winner plus a real box-to-box player in the two deep midfield positions.Arteta lacks the required athleticism while the athletic Flamini has better organisational ability but his pure defensive numbers(interceptions,blocks,ball recoveries etc)are rather average and significantly poorer than those of our best-box-to-box midfielder, Ramsey.An upgrade in the Arteta/Flamini position(s) is key to our competing well in the tight games.If Chelsea,with their wealth of defensively astute wide midfielders,still find it necessary to field a double screen of Matic/Luiz in such games,why can’t Arsenal?People shouldn’t forget that the successful Wenger sides always had this midfield buffer: Vieira/Petit and Vieira/Gilberto.

On another note, loved Santi yesterday. He was doing his old wriggling between players and playing those outside of the foot passes again. Keep that up please. A thing of beauty. Reminds me of this when he does it (go to 1:24 into the vid to see what I mean).

I also liked the fact that after Flamini scored, he ran for the ball to return it to the centre circle. showed how much he wanted to win the game as well as telling it to city. we want to fucking beat you!

Also he just signed a new contract, so more of Santi is exactly what we’re gonna get!

Well played vermalen good game ! Good to see him fit ! When kosh is fit I would like to see Wenger rotate the centerbacks more ! when we try to play a high line verm n kosh would be a better combination both with pace ! we only ever seem to change with injurys .

2nd half display in particular was first class which does beg the question, so why couldn’t we play with the same intensity and commitment at Anfield and Stamford Bridge?

But with enough negativity over the last week or so I will end on a positive note. I was proud once again to be a Gooner yesterday, I don’t like not winning but I can take it when the team put the effort in like we did yesterday because the quality is there.

More of the same next week please, because Everton away now becomes our most important game of the season that we simply can’t afford to lose.

I don’t know why but at crucial times we always get injuries. Is it some kind of punishment? nobody knows. All we do know is that the medical staff have to sort this out, our young talent need progress.

Like Verm said, we need to keep fighting untill the end, never give up!Coyg!

Wenger has built an empire but its too big for him to cope and expectations too high. Time for a new era and experience to come in across the board. David Dean should come back and a management team to move us into 2015. If we want to compete with the best we need to have quality in every position. if we have £100m to spend in the summer lets get on with the business early and be prepared from the first game of the season. Thank you prof wenger but we need to move forward.

Gibbs is the bollocks mate, cunningly good with his left foot and precise with his tackles and interceptions. The only time he does not look good is when the winger infront of him ii not doing their job. otherwise should be even on plane to Brazil but guess we’ll leave Cashley to be embarrassed at the WC.

Lack of character would be the Spurs. i don’t see the media making much noise about them considering how much they spent and how much the media touted AVB to be the next Special One in footy.

We won’t be winning the title this season which is unfortunate (and we should have some regrets that we were unable to strengthen a critical area up front, we are not however short on depth across the team)

But we will need to finish as high as possible. A 3rd place or better finish is not beyond us just as the media would like to give Everton (whom we beat in the FA cup) leeway to catch us.

If we do 3rd or better + IF we win the FA (consolation) cup, it will be palpable progress in the right direction for us.

But the basics are there and the team have (apart from up front) pound for pound as much quality and quantity as high spending City or Chelsea.

A good finish will convince wenger to stay the course which is likely still a better outcome than the unknowns of a mangerial switch at this point (albeit the summer may be a good opportunity to line up a number of managers who may be released from International duties). Yes we are still stagnant and this is deeply frustrating. there are no guarantees that Wenger can successfully bridge the gap given this season but the minimum finish of 4th (stress minimum) is a high standard to stagnate with and is still no mean feat/represents a sort of stability if underachievement.

If Wenger stays, there may be a slim possibility he may convince Sagna to stay which would be preferable given Sagna’s institutional experience and general physical robustness.

not sure if Vermaelen will consider staying but his will be dependent on how he finishes the seasons with these remaining games being entirely his to shine and regain podium position (or at very least make a case for regular rotation within Meterscielny)

Even if he stays though, we may yet need to consider a younger Cback coming into the first team considering all 3 of Metersecker, Koscielny and Vermalen are 28 +.

Likely, we will assess Miquel and Hayden but we may also look to market for an alternative for the future. That would be sensible. Someone with a bit of height who can also cover in midfield may be very useful for us.